(Geoffrey Phillip) Peter Webber (1932–) graduated with first class honours from the University of Sydney in 1954, after joining the Government Architect’s Office in the NSW Public Works Department in 1949 as a trainee student with the University of Sydney. He was one of four influential young architects working in Harry Rembert’s Design Room there during the 1950s (along with Ken Woolley, Peter Hall and Michael Dysart). In 1955, Webber went to Britain and Europe on a Byera Hadley travelling scholarship; working in London for Howard Lobb & Partners, then travelling to Finland with Woolley and to Europe with Rembert, before returning to Sydney in 1956. For the next 18 years, he continued with the Government Architect’s Office, with projects including a 100-seat theatre for the National Institute of Dramatic Art at the University of NSW (1957); the University of Sydney’s Chemistry School (with Ken Woolley, 1958); new physics, rural sciences and pyschology-education buildings at the University of New England (1962-68); new administration and teaching buildings at the Sydney Kindergarten Teachers College (1973); and a new platypus house and walk-through aviary at Taronga Zoo (1970). With Andrew Andersons, he also wrote a 1964 development plan for the eastern side of Macquarie Street. In 1966, he succeeded Harry Rembert as Assistant Government Architect, with responsibility for the office’s design work – including teachers colleges at Newcastle, Goulburn, Bathurst and Ku-ring-gai, hospitals, university buildings and a reorganisation of Taronga Zoo. He also established a landscape architecture division. In 1973, he succeeded Ted Farmer as Government Architect – and restructured the Office’s 800 staff to work in project design-construction teams and diivided the department into six specialist sections: Schools, Health Buildings, Tertiary Education, Public Buildings, Special Projects and Services. In 1974, he became one of three Commissioners of the NSW Planning and Environment Commission, responsible for recommending a reorgnisation of the state planning system; representing the NSW government on a Commonwealth-State review of Sydney Airport. He also became a founding member of the NSW Heritage Council, chaired the Hunter Region Planning Committee and the Heights of Buildings Advisory Committee, and a research group producing planning publications. From 1979 to 1999, he was a Professor of Architecture at the University of Sydney, where he helped to develop prostgraduate programs in urban design and heritage conservationb, taught history and theory, and represented the university on the Committee of Australasian Heads of Schools of Architecture. During this period, he wrote two books: Design of Sydney: Three Decades of Change in the City Centre (Sydney, Law Book Co, 1988) and EH Rembert: The Life and Work of the Sydney Architect (Sydney: NSW Public Works Department, 1982). He also was involved in establishing the journal Architectural Theory Review (and remains on the editorial board at 2005) and wrote papers on planning codes and building form, control of building by floor space ratio, a review of city council building measurement methods 1957-1991 and strategic planning and development control. Freom 1980 to 1990, he also was a principal of architects Hall Bowe and Webber, where his projects included development control plans, a residential units and a conference centre at the Australian Administrative Staff College, Mt Eliza, Victoria (1980-83); precinct design and a new meeting hall for the Church of St Paul, Emu Plains (1987); a residential and commercial development in Regent Street, Sydney (19XX); a development control plan for Luna Park, North Sydney (19XX); a development control plan for Sydney’s Town Hall and cinema precinct (19XX) and various residential projects at Neutral Bay, Mosman, Kenthurst, Goulburn and Newcastle. In 1985, he won first prize in the national design competition for a Bicentennial Monument at Queens Square, XXXX. Throughout his career, he served on many local government assessment panels, boards and committees for the state government, the University of Sydney, the Royal Australian Institute of Architects and the Royal Australian Planning Institute; as an expert witness for the NSW Land and Environment Court; as chair of the State Library of NSW’s honorary architecture advisory committee and chair of the University of Sydney’s Buchan Fell Foundation, and as a board member of the National Trust.
Sources
—NSW Government Architect’s Office website http://www.govarch.dpws.nsw.gov.au/history/farmer_johnson.htm
—Webber, Peter. 2004. Interview recorded by Davina Jackson, November.
—Webber, Peter. 2005. Brief Career Overview, January.
- Writers:
-
Davina Jackson
- Date written:
- 2015
- Last updated:
- 2015
